


/lifeboat

by Pearly_Pornography



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Body Horror, Drunkenness, Emetophobia, Gen, Hallucinations, Unstable Marriage, Verbal Abuse, audra's a shitty wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:43:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearly_Pornography/pseuds/Pearly_Pornography
Summary: Being blackout drunk was Bill's only moment of clarity. What was he clear on? Unclear.





	/lifeboat

It was approaching midnight. Wind had been blowing wildly outside the window for the past few hours, making the glass panes tremble in their frames. Audra hadn't been home in a few days, which was the norm. She'd never say where she was going or what she was doing. Bill didn't want to know, or need to. He was terrified of being too controlling. This, unfortunately, made him more like his own parents than he'd ever expected or realized.

A glass of scotch told Bill that his wife never loved him, and he never loved her. It tasted bitter, burned the inside of his throat and stomach. She always looked at him like he was small and ugly, like something she scraped off of her red bottoms. Bill, her insect husband, so insignificant that she wouldn't even take his last name. They'd take photos together for the press and Bill almost wanted to throw up at how much better Audra looked, how much _worse_ he looked just standing next to her, his shirt tucked under his belt and forming around his thickening gut and his eyes sunken into the back of his head. People probably kept all the photos of them together and just tore him out, so they could have their very own Audra, with some stranger's hand on her forearm or shoulder. He was no better than a cyst on her back.

She'd been cheating on him. He knew, because he walked in on it. It was a man who looked a lot like him, blonde and with gray-blue eyes, but much, much younger. And he really wanted to throw a fit. He should have. He should have thrown a fit, but instead he listened while she talked about how his erectile dysfunction made it difficult to do much of anything, and that she had needs too. And suddenly he felt like it was okay, even though it stung.

_99 Luftballons_ was playing from his speaker, where he'd jammed in his archaic iPod Nano that still functioned. Even though him and Audra were more or less the same age, he felt miles older than her, possibly because she could still remember her childhood, and he couldn't. She remembered all sorts of things. Her mom and dad, her siblings, her friends from elementary school, the playground where she'd swing upside-down and all the older boys would hoot when her skirt slid up over her head, the way that corner of her house smelled of pine since they put a Christmas tree there every year, her fifth-grade science teacher, almost everything, it seemed. If asked about anything before high school, Bill would simply shrug.

Audra said that wasn't normal, and that he should see a therapist. But he didn't want to, because he'd have to face all these other things, like the depression that hung over his head for as long as he could remember. It hung so low that he barely even noticed it was there until he saw what a happy person looked like.

The ice cubes in his booze were melting. He hadn't written a word on his computer except 'the'. Words just weren't seeming to come to him. They never did. Especially since he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he'd get panned by critics for his bummer endings. It wasn't his fault that life was a downer. The one thing he decided to be realistic about was what everyone hated. They were afraid of their own realities.

'But you've got so much money, and a beautiful wife. What do you have to be sad about?'

_I don't know._

His stomach lining trembled around the alcohol, heating his skin from beneath. It was a comfort, a warmness, like a cat sitting on his lap. It filled him, surrounded him, made him feel whole and normal and good for once. Like a piece of him had gone missing and the only way to replace it was with booze. 

"Bill."

He sat up with a start, nearly hitting his head on his desktop monitor. How many glasses had he finished? Was it always that full? His skin crawled and he felt like he might piss himself. Whose voice was that? It sounded so familiar. It sounded so... close. Like he'd been beside it, heard it, lived with it and stood close by it all his life. It said his name again. And he thought, _hey, fella, don't wear it out._ It was a kid.

Standing was hard. He swayed a bit, holding onto the edge of his desk as the one word on his computer screen seemed to loop and spin around. The floor might even have come to meet him, were he not leaning on the table, varnished wood surface cool against his elbows. In a tank top and boxer shorts, he looked like very well-kept trailer trash. It was these days that he always felt fucking ugly, even though worrying about that kind of thing seemed awfully juvenile. After all, nobody really cared about his appearance except Audra. He was an author, not a male supermodel. It wasn't the same as Billy Idol turning ugly. And yet, somehow he knew how it felt to be

_(Ben Hanscom)_

someone with body dysmorphia whenever he looked at himself for a good long time.

The doorway contorted and he grabbed for its frame, holding his scotch in the other hand. The brown liquid sloshed and hit the hardwood floor. The voice spoke again. _Bill, come here!_ Bill couldn't even see straight.

"Where..."

He staggered to the nearest wall, hitting his head on it in the process. He could barely even tell what plane of existence he was on. Was this real, or was he just part of a fantasy? Audra had this friend, her name was Moonshadow or Moonbeam, Moon-something, and they'd do LSD together. Was he just an image of her most recent trip? Was he a figment of some giant monster's dream, and when that monster woke, his whole universe would end abruptly? _Am I the monster? Am I gonna wake up all alone? _He thought, as if he wasn't alone enough already. Not a single other person had stepped foot into his household today. Not even his wife's agent.

The mirror in the hall caught Bill's reflection. When he was alone in the house, sometimes, he'd do that bit from _Taxi Driver_ in front of the mirror. ("You talkin' to me? Well, there's no-one else here. So you must be talkin' to me. Who the _fuck_ do you think you're talkin' to?", all spoken with his hand shaped into a finger-gun.) He caught a glimpse of something yellow behind him and turned far too fast, slipping and falling onto his side.

"Jeez, Bill. Did you forget how to walk?"

"Muh-maybe." Bill stuttered. _Did I? Did I stutter? When did I start doing that? _Instead of questioning it further, he laughed. A wheezy, sad laugh, which became a hoarse cry. "I c-c-can't get up," he sobbed, "I can't g-get up."

The squeak of rubber came ever closer to him. Galoshes, bright yellow, the color of the sunshine. They were stained red on their tips. The legs they were attached to disappeared into a matching rain slicker, also covered in wet, red splotches. It was wet, like the fella had just been out in the rain, though it was a dry night outside. Bill didn't even know how the kid got in. He couldn't find it in himself to care.

"I can't believe you left me dead at home, Bill."

"D-d-dead?" Bill cocked his head. The child held out its left arm, which was little more than a stump. The exposed bone pointed right into Bill's face, like he was watching a 3-D movie, and he suddenly felt all sorts of sick. 

"Do you even know who I am?"

Bill shook his head. The kid in the rain slicker kicked him hard in the head, much harder than he should've been able to. "You're so stupid!" The kid was crying now, he was angry, but also hurt. Bill opened his mouth to apologize only to take another boot to the face, hard enough that he swore he tasted blood. "You're so stupid, Bill, why can't you remember? Why can't you remember when you _killed_ me?!" Bill let out a noise between a sigh, a sob and a laugh.

"I don't, how..." 

"You lied, Bill. And I paid for it."

Fuck, what's his name... Joey? Jamie?

"Juh... uh..."

"Say it." The boy's expression had changed from wounded rage to dead-eyed superiority, looking down at the grown, drunk man before him, wriggling on a floor that felt like it was covered in something slippery. Vaseline, ice, oil, whatever.

"...Georgie."

He nearly threw up while saying it. Who was Georgie? Who? What? The fear swallowed him whole and he wanted to hide. "I, I..." His head hurt. What was he seeing? A little boat on a river, sailing in the soft deep, with bow and keel slicing through the water, parting it like Moses on the Red Sea. It was newspaper and paraffin, and it peeled through the waves, angled sail wobbling in the cold oceanic wind. Suddenly, Bill was plunged into a sensation of isolation. He felt alone. He always felt alone. "...It was..."

"You call boats 'she', cap'n!" Ever-changing, the boy, Georgie, he wore a smile on his face. One that Bill could only almost trust. "Turn the rudder, cap, we're goin' north!" He threw his arms out, or rather, his arm and arm stub. Blood flicked into Bill's face, sticking to his glasses, and he cried out in shock. "Whoops. Sorry!"

"G-G-Georgie," Bill hiccuped, and looked up into his eyes. He was... what on earth happened to him? "...my brother."

"It's a lot easier to find you when you're hammered." Georgie stated, matter-of-factly. "I just wish you'd come home. I miss you." He began to cry again, this time much less pissed off. "You always leave me. Why do you always leave me? Do you hate me?"

"Uhhh..." Bill blinked, slowly, so slowly he may as well have fallen asleep for a couple seconds. "Are you real?" His mouth overflowed with saliva. As it hit the floor, he realized it was red like an Egyptian sunrise. He slapped a hand over his mouth, and it dripped through in scarlet raindrops. It tasted like liquor, blood liquor. "If you're real, y-y-you're g-g-gonna k... kill me, aren't you? H-h-hurry up, then."

"I can't." Georgie sighed. "You gotta come back to Derry for that."

"Derry, Derry..." Whatever the hell that was. Who the fuck names a place "dairy"? That's so stupid. His head hurt, why did his head hurt so much? It was throbbing and pulsing with a dull pain, almost like a migraine. "I can't... C-c-can't remember."

"You lived there for so long, though. We lived there." Georgie clasped his hands together. "I died there. It pulled me into the gutter and chewed me up."

"It?"

"It." His voice changed. It sounded different. Deep. Wrong. "You remember It, don't you, Bill?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Maybe this oughta jog your memory!" Georgie threw his arm (and stub) out to his sides. Bill heard a cracking sound, like joints popping. The skin of his face twisted and contorted, hair growing into ashy locks that reached his shoulders. His eyes were different, his gaze. Thin lips curled into a grin that could kill, and Bill had a feeling like his stomach just fell and dropped out his ass, he was terrified. "You know this man?"

That was not Georgie.

"G-G-Georgie..." He stammered. Georgie, or whoever, stepped on Bill's hand, scraping rain debris across it. Bill yowled and grabbed it.

"This one's Henry!" His voice, though different, was still full of a childlike wonder, as his arm stub changed. It protruded in pulsing muscles, bones appearing and skin growing around them into another arm. "Remember? We had good times. Buh-Buh-Bill. Didn't we?" Bill finally sat up, drawing his knees upwards and pushing back to the wall. Georgie-Henry loomed over him, despite being no older than fifteen, he made Bill feel so very, very small. His tongue lolled out, longer than any normal tongue and almost purple. His breath was hot and damp, and smelled like rotting meat, how did Bill even know what that smelled like? "Woo-wee!" The thing, whoever it was, rolled its eyes back into its head so far that all Bill could see was white and red.

"Stop it." Bill sounded less commanding and more pleading. The thing before him allowed its arms to dangle at its sides, hunched over like a little old man. It swayed back and forth, back and forth, Bill's eyes lazily following it.

"In the girl's bathroom, Greta Keene wrote 'Richie Tozier sucks flamer cock' on the third stall from the right." Its mouth opened, drool pouring to the ground. Despite being Henry-shaped, (and somehow, Bill knew what a Henry shape was) it did not move the way a human being should, its jaw opened just a bit too wide and slack and strange, its arms just a bit too long, the way its spindly fingers touched the floor. "Your wife looked just like the slut. Slut Beverly Marsh. Slut slut slut. S-s-s-slut."

"Wh-what are you talking about? _Who_ are you t-t-talking about?"

The body of the creature seemed to swell, its chest morphing into a second face. This one had long, greasy black hair and an angular face. "Stop it. Please, p-p-please, just _stop_. I'm f-f-fucking drunk, s-s-stop."

"You're sick." The second face said. "And your brother got taken away because of it. Just like meeeee." Fluid came gushing from its mouth. Blood. Blood, and something yellow, like pus, or liquefied fat, something that stank of rot and filth and bile. "I got trapped inside Beverly Marsh's sink. I got stuck down there. I turned into clown shit like Georgie. Who took my pencil case full of dead flies? I want it back, but I'm too busy." It seemed to twist further, its spine coiling around so its torso became some kind of corkscrew. The second face was stretched out, looking like those posters for Pink Floyd's _The Wall_ as it followed the spiraling shape. 

His hall suddenly became huge. The figure grew, and grew, and its back hit the ceiling so it hunched even further. His _Alice in Wonderland_ house shifted and morphed, becoming endless, shapeless, inescapable. Where was the door? Where was anything? All he saw was the thing, turning pale and strange. Its hair torch-red, hands in pale white gloves. Its teeth protruded from its lips, jutting out and forward, carving through its gums.

"I d-d-don't wanna b-b-b-be here."

"Oh, poor Bill." Its gloved hand held his chin. Soft, otherworldly. Bill opened his mouth to scream, but his throat dried up. "Poor Billy boy. You're so small and lonely. Does anybody love you?"

It looked at him. Suddenly, he remembered.

It. Pennywise. The sewer. Georgie. The paper boat. The barrens. The quarry. Rock fighting. The Aladdin. A stack of arcade tokens. The cold day he got lost. The leper who vomited on Eddie Kaspbrak. His mother telling Bill to never come back. Loser. Lover. Greta Keene. Richie Tozier. Patrick Hockstetter and his pencil case full of dead flies. Henry Bowers. Stupid sluts. Blood in the sink. Blood on the towels. You lied and I died. A flood in the basement. Everyone getting hurt. Betty Ripsom hiding in the pipes. Birds. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. Silver. Gold. A scar of the letter 'h'. A bolt gun. Swimming in their underwear. A fear of looking at Beverly Marsh's chest. A fear of looking at Michael Hanlon's crotch. The clubhouse where they tried to light a smoky fire. The weather on that day. Neibolt House. Shooting his brother. A blood oath. Silence.

His chest thumped. Bill hunched over and threw up, liquor puke with worms inside of it. The worms twitched and looked at him with their big, red eyes. He wept. _Oh God._ He coughed. _Oh God, oh God, please help me._ He knew the feeling of all his friends around him, and now that he knew the feeling of acceptance, he missed it so dearly he could scream. Suddenly the puddle of his vomit had turned black, and he saw his disheveled reflection.

_Am I the man you loved? _

He heard the door creaked. Suddenly, it was gone. The hall returned to normal. The click of Audra's heels echoed through the first floor. He could only look up at her, like a dog who knew it had done bad. Her gaze was unforgiving, as unforgiving as the monster itself.

"Bill." Her mouth seemed to move slower than her voice. He gripped onto her skirt, feeling infantile.

"M-m-m-my b-b-brother." Bill sobbed, his lips trembled, bitten and red. "Audra, he's, he's d-d-d-d--"

"He's dead. We all know that. You've told me as many times as you've been drunk." She shoved him off of her leg, causing him to roll over onto his back like a dead roach. "You- you fucking threw up again?" She crossed her arms. "I've got half a mind to shove your fucking face in it. I can't deal with this shit, Bill."

"Audra, please. You g-g-gotta listen to me."

"You're drunk all the fucking time, talking about weird bullshit. Can't you see I'm fucking tired of it?" She'd clearly been hitting some substances as well, though what kind Bill had no idea. "Your dead brother would probably be awfully disappointed."

"Fuck you." He choked out. "_Fuck_ you."

"Good luck getting it up." She shed her jacket, leaving it on the floor. She looked beautiful. "Sleep on the couch, I don't want you throwing up on me."

"N-no, we have to, I, I f-f-f-forgot ev-everything." He moved slow, and she moved fast. He crawled after her, on his hands and knees, but she walked at light speed. "Please, p-please stop. Don't g--" She disappeared behind the bedroom door. Bill pounded his hands against it. _He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghost. _"If you- you- you leave me a-alone he's gonna, he's g-g-gonna, he's--"

"You're delusional!" She shouted through the wall. "Maybe if you talked to some people you wouldn't be going fucking insane."

The hallway stretched again. The darkness loomed, and Bill was alone, as he'd been for twenty-seven years.


End file.
